Rights based aspects of health and rehabilitation

Published 27.05.2010

European network assembles to discuss what obligations States do have vis a vis the health of torture survivors and to what degree the States have met these obligations.

On May 19 more than 70 delegates from all over European were
welcomed by Director General of RCT, Professor MD Bengt Sjölund.
The delegates represent about 100 European centres and programmes
providing assistance to victims of human rights violations.

Bengt Sjölund pointed out that victims should not be seen as ill
but rather as having considerable problems in functioning after
being subjected to torture. Thus the new UN convention on the
Rights of the Disabled has to be considered as a tool to ensure
rehabilitation for all torture victims in Europe. Also a
professionalization and mainstreaming of rehabilitation into the
health care sector is necessary and beneficial for the victims.

Moreover the delegates were welcomed by the Copenhagen Mayor of
Social Affairs, Mikkel Warming. In his speech he emphasized the
terrible toll that torture takes on individuals and their families.
The social department he represents is very aware of the problems
which do not only go for the victim, but also for those to whom the
victim relies for help and support. The family members are so to
say the secondary victims of torture.

The conference was opened as well by the Chairperson of Network,
Elise Bittenbinder and Leanne Macmillan from the Working group on
Advocacy & Legal Issues.

Last but not least was the theme of the conference introduced in a
presentation by Professor Emeritus Ole Espersen, former Minister of
Justice and Chairman of the Danish Rule of Law Foundation. Ole
Espersen made the importance of the rights to health and
rehabilitation clear although the field we are embarking in is
difficult to define and interpret. He expressed his concern for a
changing political climate. New conventions are not undertaken and
states are no longer obliging each other in the same way as they
did up until the eighties. Centres have to assist the governments
and put pressure on them to take up the issue of rights to health
and rehabilitation, and in general to protect and uphold the human
rights.

It was the 9th annual conference of the European Network of
Rehabilitation Centres for Survivors of Torture. During the
conference rights based aspects of health and rehabilitation were
discussed in several working groups organized around the themes of
advocacy, fundraising, assessment and documentation, research and
clinical work.

Torture has been called ‘the mother of all human rights violations’. As long as a country practices or tolerates torture, people will be reluctant to speak, assemble and participate in the political life. Stopping torture is the first step towards improving human rights in general.